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Friday, February 22, 2013

I'd like to walk you through a typical morning in the Wolfe household. Not the whole morning, just the part between waking up and actually getting out of bed. Give me the simple task of throwing back the covers and touching my feet to the floor, and I'll give you a blog post.

One day a week, Hubs and I both get to sleep in on the same day. For the rest of the days, Hubs wakes up during the single-digit AM hours like a normal person while I sleep late like a bum with a part-time job and a blog that is "really about to make it big."

Hubs abhors sunlight. The first time I ever visited his dorm room, back when he was still Future Hubs, a black towel was tucked across the lone window in place of real curtains.

I have a theory that Hubs is secretly some kind of hybrid bat-person. He is aware of my theory, yet he has never refuted it.

So we decided to compromise and choose curtains that would provide the exact amount of sunlight I crave, while painfully searing Hubs' retinas every morning.

When I wake up and see the sunlight streaming through my adorable, paper-thin yellow curtains, my immediate impulse is to greet the glorious day that has already been underway for several hours now.

As I open the curtains, Hubs usually groans miserably, or hisses. Sometimes he hisses. I think he's just doing it to be funny, probably.

I apologize to Hubs for letting the sun melt his face off, but I'm only partly sincere because by this point the sunlight has stimulated some hardcore serotonin production in my brain.

This was an actual conversation.

Once Hubs has closed the curtains to protect his precious "sight," we proceed to play a game of chicken to determine who will get out of bed first, because neither of us wants to leave the bed while the other person is still warm and comfy. It just seems like the worst conceivable form of injustice.

The logical choice here would be for both of us to just get out of bed at the same time.

You would think.

We stopped even trying to be fair about it a long time ago.

Lately, we've begun resorting to radical measures to drive each other from the bed. At this point, it's not even really about getting out of bed anymore. It's about winning, and guile, and brute strength.

The only problem with the face-licking tactic is that it quickly devolves into a face-licking stalemate.

Eventually, the conflict resolves itself without any real problem-solving on our part; otherwise we'd still both be in bed to this day, wallowing in our own filth and licking each others' faces.

No two apartments were exactly alike, and that drove me crazy. I wanted to know if there was exposed brickwork or a non-functioning fireplace that I was missing out on somewhere.

It was Emily who showed me the best way to explore the building: when an apartment was vacant and waiting to be rented, the landlords didn't bother locking the door. Since the building had a security code and the apartments in question were empty anyway, I guess they just didn't see the point.

Emily and I took the liberty of touring those unlocked, vacant apartments. Our motive was mostly innocent curiosity, coupled with an almost obsessive love of the building itself. Every crooked floorboard and weirdly-slanted ceiling provided a tantalizing glimpse into the days of yore. And on some level, we harbored secret hopes of finding the coolest apartment and renting it ourselves.

Eventually, we had seen almost every unit in the building. I started to mentally identify my neighbors based on the architectural features of their apartments. Sometimes not so mentally.

One afternoon, I noticed my neighbors moving out of their apartment. That night, I slipped inside and did a little reconnaissance.

The very next day, I brought Emily to the empty apartment. Leading the way, I opened the door, which was, as I expected, unlocked.

For the rest of my time in that building, I could never look that neighbor in the face.

I still don't understand how he managed to move all his furniture into the apartment immediately adjacent to mine without me hearing him. He must have been some kind of ninja.

And that is why you should always lock your door: not because of robbers or rapists or serial killers, but because two complete strangers might just walk right into your home for no apparent reason while you're trying to watch TV.

I was inspired to tell this story after reading this post by MOV, who is a much more savvy trespasser than I am.